It was his grandmother’s final wish, formalised in her will:

And to Mungo, I bequeath the contents of my safety deposit box, provided he keeps his word to me and marries within the year.

Mungo, the eldest son of a duke and in his thirties, hadn’t shown interest in marriage, although often seen with various celebrity women but now speculation mounted.

A year after his grandmother’s funeral, at a private ceremony, Mungo married his secret commoner lover of many years. The ring, his grandmother’s, had been in the lockbox.

Mungo proudly introduced his new husband to the family soon after.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Midwinter Miracle by E.M. Swift-Hook is a Fortune’s Fools short story.

The frost had frozen the blood onto the surface of the snow almost as soon as it landed, stark red against the white. In the cold illumination of the flashlight, it seemed crystalline and jewelled.
“She’ll have lost too much,” the bearded man muttered grimly. Gernie nodded. He was no expert but even he could see what this trail meant. They followed it out past the courtyard wall and on towards the edge of the settlement.
“If we had been a bit faster or you’d just hit that – “
“We had no bloody choice,” the other man cut across him. “It’s how things are here, lad, you can’t bloody change it.”
“The bastard shot her,” Gernie protested.
“And in his full legal right to do so. She is his property – or was, most likely. She ran away and that means she knew she was in for death if she got caught.”
“So you and Micha have to make nice to him? Man, that’s -” Gernie realised for the first time just how alien this world really was.
“We had to play it that way. That’s the way it bloody is around here, Tavi. Maybe if you work on it you can make a difference one day, but you can’t go shooting down local notables – nor even beating them up. Not if you are planning to stay here and I take it you are?”
For a moment, Gernie wanted to say no. Wanted to say he was not going to stay anywhere a teenage girl could be murdered, legally, in front of an entire tavern full of people. But even as he opened his mouth to say as much, he found his mind filled with the memory of an oval face with golden skin, framed by dark-copper ringlets and wearing an expression of appalled compassion. Something inside him moved.
“I’m taking the job,” he said, “if that’s what you are asking. It’s why I came here after all. The pay is crap, this place is like a nightmare. But someone has to run the spaceport so crazy people like you can come and trade here. I’ll stick it a year or two then head back to civilisation.”
The bearded man grinned briefly.
“I think Micha will be pleased.”
Gernie said nothing to that, it was still too new, too startling. He shone the flashlight back on the snow and followed the trail.
The blood seemed to vanish near the small block building that backed onto the first of the spaceport domes. As if the ground had opened and swallowed the girl.

A Midwinter Miracle is available on Audible,  as an ebook and paperback and can be purchased from Amazon, Kobo, iTunes and Googleplay. This special edition has typographic art and cover design by Zora Marie.

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

On Mondays it’s good, as a rule
Not to take too much crap from old fools
To be kindly but firm
And just watch them squirm
While you’ve treated them gently but cruel

© jane jago

Sam Nero PI is the creation of Jane Jago and a denizen of The Last City. A place where the past and the future come face to face as a prohibition-style private eye walks the mean streets of a dying world 

Welcome to his life…

When a dame whose everyday walk is as smooth and studiedly sexy as a big jungle cat, and whose make-up is as immaculate as a well-pressed designer suit, arrives in your office at a shambling run with her face all over tears and snot it’s a safe bet that something pretty bad is wrong.
I was lost in thought, with my feet propped on my desk and my hat tipped way down over my eyes, when my office door was thrown open in a dramatic fashion. I barely had long enough to wonder why in the hell my holographic door was now making an eldritch shriek, when Katie Scarlett O’Halleran and her exceptional bosom landed almost in my lap. She was crying, and her face was a mess.
She grabbed me by the lapels and tried to shake me.
“Sam. Sam. You have to come. Somebody has taken Daddy.”
I sat bolt upright and squared my shoulders. Anybody brave enough to mess with Mister Aitch was certainly a big fish, and I guessed I was about to go shark fishing. I grasped the sobbing girl by her slender shoulders.
“Calm down Katie Scarlett, and tell me what happened.”
“I already told you,” she all but screamed, “somebody has taken Daddy.”
“Details Katie, details.”
I gently compelled her to sit down, and held onto her until her chest stopped heaving and she took two steadying breaths. Then I got the bottle out of my drawer and poured her a stiff one. Her teeth chattered against the side of the glass, but the act of drinking calmed her almost as much as the bourbon.
“Daddy’s personal alarm sounded about an hour back. Me and the twins ran, but his office door was locked. When we broke the door down he was gone, and there was blood all over.”
“Okay,” I said, although I didn’t think anything was okay. “Where are the twins now?”
“Flirting with your holographic floozie. We set droids to watch on the office and came straight here.”

A bite of… Jane Jago

Question one: How did a classic American private eye come to find himself sharing an asteroid with the last remnants of mankind?

Well it’s not simple. Sam is no more precisely what he seems to be than are any of the other occupants of The Last City. The human race is hurtling towards extinction and those who know that choose to live lives of hectic pleasure seeking. Those with less options are a different matter.

Question two: Given the dystopian nature of this situation how come the stories are so upbeat?

It’s my contention that humans will always wring whatever pleasure they can from even the most distressing of situations.

Question three: Every story has a heart. What is the heart of Sam Nero’s story?

Ah. Yes. The heart. The heart of Sam’s story is love. Love which can never be consummated. Sam and his lady love can never physically touch….

Jane Jago lives in the beautiful west country with her big, silly dog and her big sensible husband. She spent the first half of her working life cooking and the second half editing other people’s manuscripts. Now she has the time to write down the stories that have been disturbing her sleep for as long as she can remember.

You can follow her on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter.

Dying as a Druid is a seasonal Dai and Julia Mystery by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago. 

It is Saturnalia, but the celebrations in the Llewellyn household are curtailed by a double murder and a personal accusation against Dai, which strikes at the very heart of his marriage to Julia.

December MDCCLXXVII

It was the longest night and the fires in the sacred grove turned the oiled muscles of the naked young men to liquid fire. The old men watched from under their wrinkled eyelids as the goddess made flesh walked among them. She was beautiful and in the firelight something more than mere beauty with her red-gold hair cloaking her nakedness and the stag horns that seemed to grow from her forehead. She touched each young man with a delicate forefinger and whenever one pleased her they lay down in the loam together as the goddess and the god. The young men not deemed fit to serve watched in envy, save for the one who filmed covertly smiling to himself as he did so…

I

In another place, not far away geographically, but a million miles from the rites of the Druids in terms of intent, Julia Llewellyn was also naked in the the firelight. She was lying in her husband’s arms, noticing how her own mediterranean olive complexion looked golden in the warming glow and tracing the pink patterns the flames made on her man’s white Celtic skin.
“How does anybody even get to be so pale? You look like one of the marble statues in the forum. Just stick a helmet on your head and you’d be a dead ringer for any of the minor gods or messengers.”
Dai moved swiftly, pinning his giggling wife under him and tickling her ribs.
“Minor god, is it?”
“Is,” she said firmly, “the likes of Jupiter and Vulcan are always depicted as old men with big beards.”
He laughed down at her and she wriggled out from under him pushing against his broad chest with one small hand. He rolled on his back and she straddled him, grinning cheekily. 
“You look a bit happier now. So? Are you going to tell me what chapped your arse today?”
“How come you always know?”
“I have eyes, lovely boy. Now spill.”
Dai sat up, so that his wife straddled his lap and rested his chin on the top of her head.  Julia, being Julia, couldn’t resist a naughty wriggle. He pulled her closer and sighed.
“Smooshing my nose Llewelyn. And I really do need to know what upset you.” 
“It’s that moecha Cariad. It’s been playing on my mind all day. I think she’s up to something.”
“And that’s surprising because?”
He snuffled out a reluctant half-laugh.
“It’s not. What is surprising though is that I find I mind on behalf of Caudinus. He’s actually a decent man. Not just decent for a Roman Magistratus, just plain decent. And he obviously loves her, blindly and absolutely. But she is equally obviously bored and discontented.” He gave Julia a brief, twisted smile. “When we were there for dinner and gift giving the other day, she was walking a thin line. First there were those pointed comments over dinner, then we had the Game of Truth. Everyone else was being light and flippant, but it was as if she was trying to dig out the most excruciatingly inappropriate incidents she could think of. Asking you where – and when – you lost your virginity. Making me confess the embarrassing donation I made in the name of science during my academy days, though she knows how much I hate being reminded of that. Dragging out the personal humiliation of poor Caudinus when he was falsely accused of sleeping with his boss’s wife. And then lying in her teeth about her own dalliances. Manufacturing a blush.” His voice shifted to mimic Cariad’s sultry tone. “‘One before my dear husband…’”
Julia quirked an eyebrow.
“I know of at least a dozen” Dai said wryly.” She was and possibly still is, as randy as a mare on heat. But that isn’t my worry. I’m afraid she’s getting fed up with him. She was so mean to him about his Saturnalia gift to her and he tries so hard. I keep seeing the hurt in his eyes.”
Julia took his face between her palms.
“Dai bach, from where I was standing it was obvious that she was fed up with him on the day of their nuptials.”
He gaped at her and she couldn’t help loving him for his naïveté along with his more potent charms.
“So why did she marry him?”
“I’m guessing the lure of being queen of Viriconium was too strong to be resisted.”
Julia felt the sigh her husband heaved and put her arms around him, kissing his chest as that was the nearest bit of him.
“Promise you won’t ever get fed up with me, Julia fach.”
“I think you are pretty safe there, lovely boy. Aren’t you the other half of my soul?”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him rather seriously.

Later, as they lay in bed under the goose down comforter, Dai pulled Julia so she lay across his chest.
“What do I have to wear at this gods-forsaken function tomorrow? I’m dreading it, the annual temple turn out for the birthday of the Divine Diocletian I mean. Outside? December? Toga?”
Julia smiled down at him. 
“No. Tunic and trews and a good warm cloak. You have new trews and tunic in fine cashmere wool. You’ll be fine. You should rather have pity on me, as women are not allowed to wear trousers in the temple precinct. But I do have some thick woollen stockings that make my legs look really fat.”
He laughed and they drifted off to sleep in happy intimacy.

The next morning they had to be up well before dawn. Julia had just got in the bath and Dai was shaving when there came an urgent trill from Dai’s wristphone which he had left beside the bed. Dai wrapped a towel around his waist and went to see what was afoot, carefully closing the bathroom door behind him. Julia had a bad feeling about someone calling before it was properly light so she jumped out of the warm water and towelled herself briskly. Before she had finished dressing Dai was back. With his work face on.
“Sorry love, looks like I get to miss the ceremonials. Message from the landlord of the Dragon and Leek on the Ynys Mon road. A bit garbled, because the place is deep in a valley in the woods and the comms are merda, but something about a fine lady gone missing and two dead Roman outriders. I’ve roused Bryn and the posse.”

You can keep reading Dying as a Druid for free until 18 December.

Glossary
Academy – university
Bacn/Fach – (m/f.) literally small/little, term of endearment, dearie may be closest
Magistratus – senior official with legal jurisdiction over an area
Moecha – literally ‘adulteress’ metaphorically: ‘slut’ or ‘tart’
Saturnalia – a Roman festival lasting from 19-23 December
Toga – male formal wear
Viriconium – we would call it Wroxeter
Ynys Mon –  or the Isle of Anglesey

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning.

Julia came half-conscious, to the realisation she was most definitely not floating in water any more. She seemed to be being carried  quite roughly over the shoulder of a medium-sized man. She also seemed to be encased in some sort of bag. Faex, she thought; I’ve gone and got myself abducted. She forced her woolly brain into some sort of order and came to the conclusion that there was only thing she could profitably do. She carefully urinated very slowly and grimaced as the warm fluid ran down her bare leg. It took some moments before the man carrying her became aware of the wetness.
“Moecha pudita,” he said bitterly, “she’s only gone and pissed herself.”
“Golden showers? Happens. Some ‘ud pay for that,” another rough voice crowed. “You insisted on carrying her. Give her here and wring your tunic out if it’s that bad.”
“Naa it’s just a trickle.”
They rounded a sharp corner and Julia’s head rapped smartly against a stone coyn.


Perhaps, left to himself, Dai might have not informed the Tribune immediately and would have taken more opportunity to try and start the investigation unhampered. But the presence of the two praetorians left him with no choice. It was either he did it, or they would – if they had not already. Which was why he found himself in the very unfunny position of standing in as close an approximation to attention as he had ever achieved, with Tribune Decimus Lucius Didero in a towering rage less than an arm’s reach away.

 The Tribune did anger cold and his face was a mask that scarcely shifted even as he spoke. It seemed this was something that could get beneath the facade of his expected gravitas. But then perhaps, Dai realised, it was too close to reliving the nightmare of Julia’s previous abduction.
“So I trust you with my foster-sister and you let her get kidnapped?”
“She was in the women’s bath, I -”
The Tribune’s head lifted sharply and his eyes bored into Dai from above his finely chiselled aquiline nose.
“I promise you Llewellyn, if anything happens to her you will be the one I hold personally responsible. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, dominus.”
“I have checks on all exists and my men combing the city from here out, they are not going to be gentle. If I have to rip this dungheap city apart building by building to find Julia, I will do so. Whoever took her will not have got far.”
“Dominus, Please, this is my city. Let me -’
“I think you have done enough, don’t you? You are deprived of rank and under arrest, Llewellyn and be glad I am not laying any accusation of complicity in this crime at your door – yet.”
Dai felt a sick moment of helplessness, then his own anger flared.
“It just might be I could find her, dominus. Are you willing to pass up that chance, no matter how slim in your view it might be?”
For a moment, he thought the Tribune was going to strike him and his muscles tensed reflexively. Then the other man seemed to consciously relax and after a moment he gave a slight upwards nod.
“Find her, Llewellyn. Find her before my men do or make sure you get yourself very lost.”

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Just take a step over here, please,
and sign on the dotted line.
Your conscience is perfectly clear now
And it’s all going to be just fine.
It isn’t a question of principle,
when wrapped in a fictional skin
A story is simply, exactly that
It can glorify any old sin.
The reader will know it’s only a tale,
And never it serious take
They are fully aware, the words that you writ
Are totally, utterly fake.
So keep your eye on that paycheque
It’s all going to be just fine
And you really won’t even notice that
You’ve crossed a horrendous red line…

E.M. Swift-Hook

An extract from the next Fortune’s Fools book, Iconoclast: Not To Be by E.M. Swift-Hook which will be available in the new year.

Suddenly she was free, thrown aside as her attacker released her abruptly. Lorelea gasped, still choking, and threw out her good arm to save herself as the ground came up hard. She skidded and tried to roll, hurting her hip in the process, gasping for breath desperately. Then a hand scooped under her elbow, lifting her back to her feet.
“We need to move. He’s down, but I think he might have called in back-up.”
The voice was male and familiar, though in the moment she couldn’t place it, but she didn’t fight as the man helped her rise and locked an arm under her shoulder so she was half lifted and half running away from the bay, but further into the more dilapidated area of the spaceport. 
Her breath had come back now and, willing to fight again if needed, Lorelea resisted being pulled along. The moment she did, the man released her, spinning them both behind a high-sided industrial storage bin as he did so. He was tall and had to crouch down to keep his head below the level of the rim where Lorelea could stand beside it.
Now she knew him. 
This was the man she had last seen on Hell’s Breath. The same ruffled dark red-brown hair, the same direct gaze. It was the CSF man who had interrogated her daughter and told Lorelea his name was Grim. He had been looking for Jaz too. The last time she had seen him it had been along the length of an old-style energy weapon she was holding, but presumably he wasn’t carrying a grudge about that. She could think of no reason why he would be here, but in that moment it didn’t matter. He might not be her first choice of ally, but he was one she could at least trust to get her out of the present mess she had walked into.
“Your place or mine?” he asked. “Mine is right round the corner.”
Lorelea saw the figure even as Grim reacted and started to turn, but too slow. She had been gripping the snub in her pocket and now, with no conscious thought, fired without pulling it free. The shot took her target in the gut and the woman who had come into view around the industrial bin, fired high before folding forward sharply and clutching at her abdomen. Then a second burst from the Grim made the woman’s body jerk once then go still.  Lorelea felt nothing. She knew she should be appalled. She had never killed anyone before, never fired a shot in anger, never…
“I’ll run,” Grim was saying. “Cover me as much as you can.”
She blinked and felt his hand grip her arm. She wanted to say she was not that good of a shot, that this was not any kind of situation she had been in before. But something in his expression told her he had figured that already. It was just either she or he had to go out there and he was the one volunteering. She pulled the snub out of her ruined pocket and nodded.
 A thump on the industrial bin was all the warning they had. A dull thump and the rapid mist rising. They had been lucky. Whoever had thrown it, the grenade had fallen short and it landed in the industrial bin, leaving them protected for a few moments from whatever gas or irritant the grenade had contained.
But Lorelea knew that whatever it was it could rise, disperse and affect them if they remained in place. And if they left the cover of the industrial bin together, without the other to provide some kind of cover, they would be easy targets. There was no other way to go, beside them was a solid wall.
Solid wall. 
Except for the slight depression in the panel at hand height.
Lorelea did not waste – or risk – a breath to explain. Instead she tagged Grim hard on one arm and pushed her hand onto the panel, feeling the mechanism give. The panel shifted slightly but not enough. Like everything else here, it was old and poorly maintained. Then Grim was behind her adding his strength to hers and the panel opened up. They were inside the dark service space and Grim heaved the panel back to seal them in and ran his snub’s energy field over the mechanism to fuse it shut. Unless whoever was after them knew the local service tunnel network well, they should have a chance.
The last service tunnel Lorelea had been in was well signposted by augmented labelling from the starport’s AI. This place had none. She had no idea which way would take them further into the dilapidated area and which would lead them out of it. Maybe Grim had a better sense of direction, or just had figured before she did that keeping still was the worst of the three options available. He had produced a narrow beamed flashlight and, putting a hand on Lorelea’s shoulder briefly, led the way along the narrow tunnel.
The air in the tunnel was dry and had an acrid tang to it. Their footsteps stirred a slight miasma of dust and Lorelea wondered where it had come from if these tunnels were so closed off and unused, hoping it didn’t betray their passage. The next exit along, Grim paused long enough to fuse the opening mechanism. Then shone the beam of his flashlight up so the darkness around them was banished.
“You alright?” He looked and sounded genuinely concerned.
“Yeah. But can’t you just call in some back up or something? You’re CSF, right?”
His expression blanked abruptly.
“Was. Long story and it’ll have to wait, we need to keep moving.” He turned away taking the light with him.
“Wait!”
There was one thing Lorelea needed to know, but Grim was already moving.
“We can talk later – when we’re safe.”
“I just want to know why you were there? How did you know, I was -?”
He turned back towards her and his face was wearing the impersonal mask again.
“I didn’t,” he told her. “I was just passing by. Now we need to move. Please.”
Grim fused the next exit panel shut too and soon after they reached a point where they could either continue on or take a ramp down. He shone the flashlight down the ramp into the dark.
“That goes to the automated freight level,” Lorelea said. “It’s fully automated. No place for humans.”
Grim looked across at her, his face distorted by shadows.
“You seem to know a lot about this.”
She shrugged. “Long story. But believe me, we don’t want to go that way.”
He nodded and shone the light along the tunnel ahead.
“Alright. I guess we keep on this way. At least with this all being AI dead they can’t track us in here. But depending who your friends were, they might have the exits covered.”
There was a slight interrogation in his tone.
“I don’t know who they are,” she said aware she was sounding defensive. “I was slipped the address for that Bay in Voltz. I’d just said I wanted to speak with someone who could help me find someone.”
“Who were you-?” Grim broke off and the light vanished. They could both hear the footsteps in the dark ahead. Lorelea felt an arm loop her waist and she was hurried down the ramp. The arm released her with a firm pressure indicating she should continue her descent and she obliged for a couple more paces then pressed herself against the wall and snub in one hand. 
The light played over the top of the ramp and finding nothing in its beam a figure appeared,silhouetted briefly, one arm extended with a snub ready. A moment later it fell away with a grunt. But the light remained hovering. Lorelea was almost bowled over when Grim spun and started running. He swept her with him and they were running down the ramp, the flashlight casting odd shadows as the ramp doubled back. 
If she had been in any doubt as to why, the muffled splut of a gas grenade exploding was all the explanation needed. Grim hit the door at the bottom and opened it in almost the same movement and then they were in the brilliant light. Blinded, Lorelea blinked and was still trying to adjust when her arm was grasped and she was steered at speed to one side.
The freight area was as she remembered it.
“The vehicles here -” she started to explain, but then broke off as right in front of them two trains of trailers appeared from either side, danced tightly round each other and shot off at right angles to where they had emerged. Lorelea was forced back, Grim beside her, pressed hard against the walls to avoid the one that spun towards them. Following its path, two figures had just emerged from the service door. One fired a quick snap of energy which burned the side of a container right beside her, then they had to retreat to avoid the freight themselves.
Her whole body shaking at the near miss, Lorelea barely felt a brief tug on her hand and Grim was already vanishing at speed around the sharp corner as she pushed herself away from the wall to follow. He waited for her to catch up and Lorelea felt a wash of fury at herself, banishing all other emotion. She wasn’t going to let herself be any kind of a problem here. She had this.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Lethal ducks that ride in punts
Carry guns and humans hunt
Quacking in a sinister mode
Each one feeling brave and bold 
As each shot a human ends
Cry ‘Orange sauce to you, my friend!’

©jj 2019

Welcome to the Hotseat of Truth, a device in which your protagonist is trapped. The only way to escape is to answer five searching questions completely honestly or the Hotseat will consume them to ashes!

Today’s victim is Percy, an Arthurian Knight of the Round Table, doomed to immortality and still alive in the present day. You can read his story in Quartet: Four Short Stories, Four Explorations of the Fantastic, by Leo McBride

How did you feel when you realised you had somehow become immortal?

You’ll forgive me, milady, for my answer. For you see, I felt ashamed. I knew in my heart the reason why immortality had been bestowed upon me, and every day that I continue to live is a reminder that I have failed my king. I swore I would not rest until I completed the quest he charged me with, and here I am, still without rest, still without the goal I sought. Each day I wake is a reminder of my long failure – and a spur to drive me on to succeed at last. Then, I hope, I might be able to give myself to that sweet bliss of eternal sleep that has eluded me for so long. 

What is the hardest thing about being immortal?

The hardest thing? That’s a simple answer. It’s the people one leaves behind. I have lost so many, whose brief candle has been snuffed out as my dim light endures. Worse, as the years have gone by, I have realised how bright those lives shine in comparison to my own. Perhaps immortality dulls one’s light. Instead, I see their lives like a flare in the darkness. I have been with them as they died. I was with Merlin as he was born. And sometimes, through the crowds of the world, I think I see a face I recognise, only to realise I am mistaken, and I thought it was someone I lost long ago. For some of those moments, the grief never fades.

Have you ever behaved dishonourably?

I fear it is my dishonour that prevents me from completing my quest. Only those who are worthy may find the Grail. If I were worthy, I would not still be alive. My quest would be done, my king would be satisfied. I am a knight, and I have fought on battlefields, on streets, in sewers and in palaces. Some would say that battle is chivalrous, but it seldom is. When I first saw knights in the forest I was raised in as a boy, I thought them angels, as my mother described. Taking part in battle has taught me combat is more often the devil’s work. It is often brutal, and dirty, and fraught with terror. One does what one needs to do in order to survive. Has every such conflict been honourable? I dare not say. There is one greater dishonour, of course – the day I held my tongue when I should have spoken out, and in doing so failed my king. 

What do you feel is the greatest gain that humanity has made over the time you have lived?

You live in a time of wonders beyond my power to imagine as a child growing up in the forest. Your physicians are almost the equal of Merlin himself. You have the power to speak and have your voice heard on the other side of the world. You have unlocked the code of life itself. You don’t always use such wonders wisely – you sometimes use such power to destroy rather than to heal. But there seldom passes a day when I do not turn my head to the sky and gaze upon the greatest wonder of all, one that so many take for granted. You can fly. What more wondrous sensation could there be?

What is your favourite alcoholic beverage? And has the imbibing of same ever got you into trouble?

Wine was commonplace around our knightly table, but growing up I was innocent. When I first travelled with the knights who came to the forest, they gave me wine and I knew not what it was. They were teasing me, I realised later, having sport with the foolish young peasant boy. There was especially one knight, Sir Kay, who kept refilling my tankard and urging me to drink more. We had something of a falling out, I must confess, and he took to insulting me – which in turn drove me on to prove myself. But perhaps his anger was understandable. After all, it was the morning after my first night of drinking that he discovered I had used his helmet for a bowl. Again, I must protest, I was young and so very foolish.

There will be more of Percy’s adventures in print sometime in the future…